The Inconvenience of Ur'Traps

Xenthos

Right now, ur'Traps are still pretty frustrating to use; you place one down, and after x amount of hours (depending on ur'trap upgrade), it may catch one creature... or it may fail.  Either way, you have to go to the trap to reset it and allow it to catch another creature.

This means, to really use an ur'trap, you have to schedule your time around it (remember it, give yourself a timer for when the time will be up, etc); it is one of the more aggravating artifacts to use, in my opinion because you have to continually go back and reset the thing on a rather lengthy time scale.  I'm not sure why it needs to be this way.  I believe that there exist options to make it more user-friendly.

My idea is to, instead of making it a "one-shot" trap, make it more like a trap akin to RL lobster traps (which are designed around catching more than one creature at a time).
1) Make it so that the trap is permanently placed, as long as it has bait-- once it runs out of bait, then it can do what it currently does.
2) The ur'Trap can hold up to x creatures (I would say up to 5 creatures, but you could make it start at 3 or something and give upgrades that take it to a higher amount, such as up to 10 at the highest level).
3) One creature will be caught at the current trap rate (so at level 1, it will catch 1 every 20 hours, at the highest level it will catch 1 every 4 hours).
4) Increase how much bait can be put into the trap at a time (I'd say up to 50 pieces of bait).

This set of changes would enable us to go tend our ur'Traps on our own schedule, while not really increasing the maximum number of captures that we are able to do.  We're no longer stuck scheduling ourselves around when our trap will be coming up for renewal.

@Estarra : This would definitely make ur'Traps a more appealing purchase, to me.  I know others have been complaining about them off-and-on over the years since their implementation, as well, and I think this does address the biggest remaining issue with the things (now that you've already tried to address the reward-side of the equation).

Versalean

I can only agree with every part of @Xenthos post. I have a fully upgraded ur'Trap, something I was incredibly excited about, and I really wish that I could recommend it to people because it looks like a really fun artefact. Once again in harmony with the OP, the reward side causes me few issues, it's the inconvenience of having to literally plan my day around ur'Trap triggers and having done that I'm still coming back to an empty trap 10% of the time.

I would definitely buy more traps if these changes were implemented.

Lavinya

At the very, very least, why does the creature have to escape? I would be happier knowing when I've caught something it's caught until I get there to get it, not that I set my trap knowing I will be here in x hours to get the creature. 

Yarith

I dunno, I'm pretty happy with ur'traps. If you didn't want a game you plan your day around you wouldn't play farmville, so if you didn't want to plan your day around ur'traps you wouldn't get them. Not having them escape at max trap would be wounderful though!

Xenthos

Yarith said:

I dunno, I'm pretty happy with ur'traps. If you didn't want a game you plan your day around you wouldn't play farmville, so if you didn't want to plan your day around ur'traps you wouldn't get them. Not having them escape at max trap would be wounderful though!

I was one of the first people to get an ur'Trap, before we really knew how they worked (or that they would require this level of farming).

I cannot trade in my ur'Trap for a refund, being unhappy with how they work (not even a 2/3 as per other artifacts).

I definitely will not buy any more, nor do I see any reason to; I also (as Versalean has said) will recommend against the purchase of it because of how it is set up.

This set of changes would both make it easier for a broader group of people to actually be able to utilize the things, as well as making it more worthwhile to actually invest in more traps.  It's a relatively minor change in actual outcome that will drastically improve the ur'Trap experience.

Can't see any real reason to argue against quality-of-life improvements to an artifact purchase.

Yarith

Then we have differing opinions. I bought and upgraded 4 ur'traps with a full understanding of how they work and I'm satisfied with how they've been so far. You're only really doing it for the cookies and once you have 4 traps you have no shortage of them.

Edit: I'm not against it but I don't really think it's at all necessary.

Falaeron

I dunno, I would definitely recommend urtraps to people with the dingbats to spare. For me, dingbat artie priority is nose and then bubblixes if you're into the domoth/flare game, followed by urtraps. They're just so good.

Xenthos

Falmiis said:

I dunno, I would definitely recommend urtraps to people with the dingbats to spare. For me, dingbat artie priority is nose and then bubblixes if you're into the domoth/flare game, followed by urtraps. They're just so good.

If by "so good" you mean "pretty terrible for anyone who has time constraints," then yes.  The only way to really utilize an ur'trap to its full advantage for anyone who actually has real-life obligations is to set it up, time it, and repeatedly log in from work (and/or wherever else you are) in order to trigger & release.

Or, I suppose, just buy a whole pile of them and do it 1x per day, but in that case you're wasting a huge amount of the potential / what you paid for.

Yarith

I think you're confusing 'optimize' with 'utilize'. That's also only a factor if you max out the contract. If you can't make that commitment you should invest in several ur'traps firing at 10 or 20 hours instead of one firiing at 5.

And you're not wasting if you're getting the cookies from them.

Edit: I reread. Yeah, to make the most of them you have to be able to log in each 5 hours or offset 5 hours if they lose the beast.

Xenthos

Yarith said:

I think you're confusing 'optimize' with 'utilize'. That's also only a factor if you max out the contract. If you can't make that commitment you should invest in several ur'traps firing at 10 or 20 hours instead of one firiing at 5.

And you're not wasting if you're getting the cookies from them.

Edit: I reread. Yeah, to make the most of them you have to be able to log in each 5 hours or offset 5 hours if they lose the beast.

Which is why I'd like to see it changed to be more friendly to people who have real-life obligations and do not want to do things like log in from work to farm them (full disclosure: I actually did this for a while, using a pyramid to my manse room / to the trap room, but it's something I ended up deciding wasn't good to continue for various reasons).  At the same time, the change would (preferably) ensure that people who currently do farm them to their full advantage don't see any reduction themselves.

Basically: They're an artifact, and one of the points of artifacts is to drive sales.  Making an artifact easier / less frustrating to use is only a good thing, imo, and a good way to encourage people to buy.

Riluna

Yarith said:

I dunno, I'm pretty happy with ur'traps. If you didn't want a game you plan your day around you wouldn't play farmville, so if you didn't want to plan your day around ur'traps you wouldn't get them. Not having them escape at max trap would be wounderful though!

I definitely disagree. For players like me, especially who only even have two or three non-consecutive days a week to log on to do whatever, they just don't work. I definitely wasn't thinking farmville when I bought the urtrap right away (I was excited about what they were supposed to do), before I knew how they actually worked. I get the design is supposed to encourage people to log on more often, but IMHO that's a harmful, narrow-minded view to plan for that one type of player, and one type of player only. Especially when asking for a purchase to get them.

Even if you can only have one in each trap at a time, not releasing your jackalope after a day would make me regret my urtrap far, far less. I don't care if it dies in the trap, and you therefore only get a cookie, no chance at a coin unless it's while the critter is alive. That would be far more amenable then "log in soon or this is worthless".

Yarith

Sure. Why not allow people to have more than 4 too?

Tremula

I would very much like to trade in my ur'trap. Sure, I could be utilising it for max effectiveness, but that is not how I play nor would I want to plan my day around doing my ur'traps. It would be very nice to be able to get 2/3 tradein value, much as the rest of the artefacts are allowed.

Xenthos

Probably for the same reason that they should have limited how many treasure maps, genie bottles, and manse commodity farm generators a person can have. :P

They did limit cornucopias, at least, but the stuff that lets you farm stuff like coins & various other things really needs a limiter.  Free coins actually ends up giving out a lot of free credits (the promotion for wheel spins still seems to be in effect, and once you've done enough you get a pretty hefty payout).

I don't know what the appropriate limit should be, and don't have an objection to discussing raising it a little bit for the traps, but there does still need to be an upper cap of some kind imo!

Yarith

I was under the opinion the dynamic around checking them checking them was a time constraint which was made to address that particular issue too.

Edit: But, I mean, whatever works.

Xenthos

Yarith said:

I was under the opinion the dynamic around checking them checking them was a time constraint which was made to address that particular issue too.

Edit: But, I mean, whatever works.

Not really, if there was no upper limit a person who was able to be constantly active would not really have a constraint in that regard at all (whereas, of course, the rest of us would still be limited / find ur'Traps to not be worth the cost).

Demartel

I am new to Urtraps so forgive me if I am wrong, but is that not the reason for being able to put in 10 baits? So if you cannot get on at the exact time your trap goes off it is no big deal because you have enough bait in there that it will reset and you will get on the next time? If that is not the case it should be, if it is the case then I do not see the issue with how they work.

Xenthos

It only resets if it failed to catch something; if it did catch something, it stops trying to get anything else and instead starts an "escape" timer within which you have to kill the creature. But even if you do kill it before it escapes, the time between the capture & when you kill it is lost (the next capture timer does not start until you manually reactivate it), meaning that the only way to efficiently use your trap if you have real-life obligations is to ditch those obligations every 4 hours. Hence, this thread; it should be quite possible to make changes that do not require constant babysitting from work/etc in order to make the most of your purchase. Other investments like maps, genies, etc. just require you to log in once per day; there is no reason that traps cannot be similar.

Demartel

Well it should reset either way as long as bait is there. If the creature escapes, and bait is in trap, reset trap. If the trap  fails to catch a creature and bait is in the trap, reset trap. I don't care if I lose baits because I cannot log on, but it seems silly to not have the trap reset every time as long as there is bait in it. Other than that you have complete control over how often you need to log in, based on the trap size you buy. If you know you cannot log in every 5 hours then don't upgrade to 5 hour traps. Unless I am missing something.

Xenthos

In short: Having a four hour trap reset is pointless if you cannot log on every four hours. I would prefer changes to the traps to make them actually useful to people in this situation, but the problem is also that we cannot trade in these useless "upgrades".

Xenthos

You are missing that people's time and availability is not consistent and can change over time. What they can do at one point is not what they will always be able to do.

Demartel

Can you buy multiple traps but only set up the ones you want based on your licenses?

I mean say I bought 4 4 hour traps, a couple 10 hours and a couple 25 hours. I know I won't be on all day for a week, so I can use my 25 hour traps, but the weekend comes around and I plan to veg on the computer all weekend so I can use my 4 hours traps then?

Also, you should be able to trade them in, I agree.

Xenthos

That sounds like an extraordinary waste of dingbats to me, simply to try to work around a problem that would be much better dealt with by some changes to how they work... edit: in that case, you would always have a pile of traps sitting doing nothing, it would be even more wasteful in the end.

Versalean

Relatedly:

If you have an urTrap and you're willing to, do URTRAP STATS and paste it into this thread.

e.g.:

*********************[ ur'Trap Statistics for Versalean ]**********************

Creature                     Trap                          Escaped Captured 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A huge forest wraith         A spectral vine noose (#521)        7       15

A small forest wraith        A spectral vine noose (#521)        0       68

A large forest wraith        A spectral vine noose (#521)        3       17

*******************************************************************************

Escape Total: 10

Captured Total: 100

EDIT: updated with last few procs, and added my (10%) escape:capture.

Xenthos

**********************[ ur'Trap Statistics for Xenthos ]***********************
Creature                     Trap                          Escaped Captured
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A small forest wraith        A spectral vine noose (#104)        0      285
A large forest wraith        A spectral vine noose (#104)       13       96
A huge forest wraith         A spectral vine noose (#104)       17       61
*******************************************************************************
Escape Total: 30
Captured Total: 442

Pretty obviously I tried to make it work, but I just haven't been able to keep it up.  Been a very long time since I've been able/willing to consistently tend my trap. 

Falaeron

**********************[ ur'Trap Statistics for Falmiis ]***********************

Creature                     Trap                          Escaped Captured 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A small crystal scorpion     A pyramid trap (#417)              31      209

A large crystal scorpion     A pyramid trap (#417)               8       31

A gigantic crystal scorpion  A pyramid trap (#417)              17       22

A gigantic poltergeist       A mysterious box (#503)             5       12

A large poltergeist          A mysterious box (#503)             6        9

A small poltergeist          A mysterious box (#503)            15      102

A small crystal scorpion     A pyramid trap (#535)               1       16

A large crystal scorpion     A pyramid trap (#535)               1        3

A gigantic crystal scorpion  A pyramid trap (#535)               1        3

*******************************************************************************

Escape Total: 85

Captured Total: 407

All my traps are level 2 with a level 1 circle, though #417 was upgraded over time.

Xenthos

Mine (#104) posted above was fully upgraded before I used it at all.

Mrak

I'm glad someone finally posts about the stats. Here's mine at this point:

A small crystal scorpion     A pyramid trap (#396)              48      155

A large crystal scorpion     A pyramid trap (#396)              16       54

A gigantic crystal scorpion  A pyramid trap (#396)              32       47

A small crystal scorpion     A pyramid trap (#527)              20       38

A gigantic crystal scorpion  A pyramid trap (#527)               3        9

A large crystal scorpion     A pyramid trap (#527)               3        3

The second is still in the process of being upgrade. The first was upgraded over time. When it became fully upgraded, the stats were (48,112), (15,38), (28,25).  Of course this is mixed in with gold bones.

I am quite happy with them (hence why I'm in the process of upgrading another) but Xenthos is right, to make use of them you really must log in every 5 hours. If you don't want to allow for trade-ins, an alternative might be to add a separate line of upgrades that lets you bank a certain number (up to ~4), so whenever the trap catches one, it resets itself and when you log in in the evening, you can spring it a few times, and release all of the animals you captured during the day.

Xenthos

I am pretty sure that being able to "bank" them was in my initial suggestion, in fact (#2).

Mrak

Xenthos said:

I am pretty sure that being able to "bank" them was in my initial suggestion, in fact (#2).

You're right - I read the original post several days ago, and since forgot that you had proposed it, my bad. In any case I obviously think it's a good idea.

Yarith

***********************[ ur'Trap Statistics for Yarith ]***********************

Creature                     Trap                          Escaped Captured 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A small mystic jackalope     A runed steel trap (#348)           0      285

A small mystic jackalope     A runed steel trap (#350)           2      331

A large mystic jackalope     A runed steel trap (#348)           8      104

A large mystic jackalope     A runed steel trap (#350)           8       94

A huge mystic jackalope      A runed steel trap (#348)          35       91

A large mystic jackalope     A runed steel trap (#354)           6       25

A small mystic jackalope     A runed steel trap (#354)         126      341

A huge mystic jackalope      A runed steel trap (#350)          22       65

A huge mystic jackalope      A runed steel trap (#354)          20       17

A small mystic jackalope     A runed steel trap (#470)         113      117

A huge mystic jackalope      A runed steel trap (#470)           7        9

A large mystic jackalope     A runed steel trap (#470)           9       12

*******************************************************************************

Escape Total: 356

Captured Total: 1491

You can't use these stats, however. They don't account for upgrades or progression with upgrades.